The Butterfly Book / A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Butterflies of North America

by W. J. Holland

Genus PYRRHANÆA, Schatz
(The Leaf-wings)

Butterfly.—Medium-sized butterflies, on the upper side of the wings for the most part red or fulvous, on the under side of the wings obscurely mottled on the secondaries and the costal and apical tracts of the primaries in such a manner as to cause them to appear on this side like rusty and faded leaves. Structurally they are characterized by the somewhat falcate shape of the primaries and the strongly produced outer margin of the secondaries about the termination of the third median nervule. The first and second subcostal nervules coalesce with one another and with the costal vein. The costal margin of the fore wing at the base is strongly angulated, and the posterior margin of the primaries is straight. The cell of the secondaries is very feebly closed.

Egg.—Spherical, flattened at the base and somewhat depressed at the apex, with a few parallel horizontal series of raised points about the summit.

Caterpillar.—Head somewhat globular in appearance; the anterior portion of the first thoracic segment of the body is much smaller in diameter than the head; the body is cylindrical, tapering to a point.

Chrysalis.—Short, stout, with transverse ridges above the wings on the middle of the abdomen, keeled on the sides. The cremaster is small and furnished with a globular tip, the face of which is on the same plane as the ventral surface of the body, causing the chrysalis to hang somewhat obliquely from the surface which supports it.

This is a large genus of mostly tropical species, possessed of rather singular habits. The caterpillars in the early stages of their existence have much the same habits as the caterpillars of the genus Basilarchia, which have been already described. After passing the third moult they construct for themselves nests by weaving the edges of a leaf together, and thus conceal themselves from sight, emerging in the dusk to feed upon the food-plant. They live upon the Euphorbiaceæ, the Lauraceæ, and the Piperaceæ. The insects are double-brooded in the cooler regions of the North, and are probably many-brooded in the tropics.

[a]Fig. 111.]—Neuration of the genus Pyrrhanæa.

(1) Pyrrhanæa andria, Scudder, Plate XXIV, Fig. 1, ♁ (The Goatweed Butterfly).

Butterfly, ♂.—Solidly bright red above, the outer margins narrowly dusky on the borders. On the under side the wings are gray, dusted with brown scales, causing them to resemble the surface of a dried leaf.